I made some of the SUP kites (the blue ones) out of Dollar Tree plastic tarp. Its actualy a very light material, but strong and waterproof. The blue
tarps you can get at Home Depot and elsewhere are probably too heavy. The big yellow and green Moko was made of water resistant ripstop and its very
light. Even regular ripstop works ok, as long is it doesn't get in the water too much. If there is a lot of wind, they will dry out quickly.

I was experimenting with the different types of kites to figure out which was best. The NPW's have better power and a bigger wind window. The
problem with the NPW's was the large number of bridles could get tangled, esp. if you use them with quads. Quads are a lot better for keeping kites
flying than dual.

The Strata and Moko designs were tried since they have a lot fewer bridles, and are lighter which helps them to keep flying. Pull was ok.

For sailing across the wind its almost certain you will lose ground and go downwind, though when I was sailing on the river, the current actually help
negate some of that. On the lake I would always tend to lose ground, but not too much. WIth an SUP it doesn't matter much since you can paddle back
to where you want to go. On the river I usually paddled downsteam (against the wind) then let the wind bring me back upstream, though I did use the
rudder and sail across the wind as well.

The simplest and most tangle free kite was the Strata. It could be folded up and make a good safety, upstream type kite.

The rudder is the key to sailing across the wind. You can sail a bit (15 degrees?) off dead downwind without it, but that's about it. Having a
rudder extends the trip a lot. Kite SUP is slow, but its probably about the same as paddling an SUP, faster in a gust.

Got a chance to try SUP +Kite in or short stay in Florida over the weekend. The spot doesn't provide a good side shore launch but I made a go of it
with a Hydra 300 kite I picked up on ebay and my kite winder. Water is shallow, and fairly warm. The kite got completely drenched as I fumbled along
and got it tangled up before launching it, but once I got it in the air everything fell into place. I think I could launch from shore at several spot
at my local lakes now using the winder, since a big beach isn't needed (and it has to be easier than launching from the water).

Since this is the kite review section - I'd have to say the Hydra 300 can certainly get plenty wet and still fly a critical factor in this type of
application. As for the Pacific Sky Power winder - it works as advertised though launching a kite from the water is never easy. Relaunching was
greatly facilitated by the winder.